| Summary: | The collection consists of the business records of the Gulf Agency, Incorporated (steamship agents) of Texas City, TX dating 1939 to 1946. The collection includes numerous correspondence with other steamship agents, shipping companies and agencies of the federal government. Correspondents include: Boy-Campbell Company, Corpus Christi, TX; C.D. Mallory and Company, New York City; Collin and Gissel, Houston, TX; Marine Transport Lines, New York City; Seatrain Lines, Houston, TX, New Orleans, LA, NYC, and New Jersey; States Marine Corporation, Houston, TX; Texas Transport and Terminal Company, Galveston, TX; W.H. Richardson, Port Arthur, TX and numerous letters with directives from the U.S. Coast Guard (Galveston, TX); US Maritime Commission (Galveston, TX and New Orleans, LA), Custom Service (Galveston, TX), War Shipping Administration (New Orleans, LA) and the War Shipping Administration/Maintenance and Repair Division (Galveston, TX and New Orleans, LA). Included as attachments in the correspondence from the federal government are various bulletins and directives regarding merchant marine vessels. The correspondence documents the scheduling of ships, their cargo which included balsa wood, twine, rice, flour, petroleum products and bonded seastores id est cigarettes, and a brief history of the Seatrain Lines in correspondence with US Customs. Among the documents are various instructions, directives and forms relating to the maintenance of vessels in the merchant marine fleet. Of interest are the pricelists from local vendors who supplied laundry service to the ships and food supplies. Setting the tone of the collection is a newspaper clipping from 1940 which records the order of Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morganthau, Jr. prohibiting any ship from leaving a United States port on a foreign voyage without his authorization and a proclamation by President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishing a new office of merchant ship movement.
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